University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER.

HOW those polished, cruel-looking instruments
sparkled, and glittered, and flashed; and how
the sick man shuddered as he glanced toward
the table where they lay, asking, with quivering lip, if
there were no other alternative save the one their presence
suggested.

“None but speedy death!” was the response of the
attending surgeon, who was too much accustomed to
just such scenes as this, to appreciate the feelings of that
poor soldier, shrinking so painfully from what they told
him must be if he would live.

“None but speedy death,”—George repeated the words
slowly to himself, dwelling longest upon the last, as if to
accustom himself to thoughts of it.

“Wait a little, wait till I think the matter over,” he
said, in reply to the question, “are you ready?” and
turning his face to the wall, so that those about him
should not see the fearful conflict going on, he thought
long and earnestly. Wasn't it better to die than go
back to Annie maimed and disfigured for life? Better
die than lose a portion of the manly beauty of which he
had been so proud. Would Annie love him just the
same, even though the strong right arm, which had toiled

for her so cheerfully, could never work for her again;
never encircle her in its embrace? Would the scarred
stump be as dear to her as the well-moulded limb had
been? He did not know, and the tears, which all through
the weary days of his sickness had been kept back, now
fell like rain upon the pillow, as he fancied the meeting
between his sweet young wife, and her poor, crippled
husband. The cottage on the hill so earnestly coveted,
would never be theirs now. He could not earn it. He
could not earn much any way, with his left arm, and he
groaned aloud, as he thought of the poor unfortunate
seen so often in the Rochester depot, peddling daily
papers. Would he ever come to that? He, who, but a
few months ago had so bright hopes for the future?
Would the delicate Annie he had meant to shield so
carefully from every ill of life, yet be compelled to earn
the bread she ate? It was a sad, sad picture the excited
soldier drew of what the future might bring, and the
fainting spirit had almost cried out, “I would rather
die!” when there came stealing across his mind the
memory of Annie's parting words,

“If the body you bring back has in it my George's
heart, I shall love you all the same.”

Yes, she would love him just the same, for, as it was
not her fair, sweet face alone which made her so dear to
him, so it was not his splendid form which made him
dear to her. Annie's love would not abate, even though
he went back to her the veriest cripple that ever crawled
the earth. But how different his going home would be
from what he had fondly hoped. No papers heralding
his arrival; no dense crowd out to meet him; no fife
trilling a jubilee; no drum beating a welcome; no bell
ringing its merry peal; no carriage, no procession; nothing
but the curious gaze of the few who might come out

to see how George Graham looked without an arm, and
whisper softly to each other, “Poor fellow, how I pity
him!” He didn't want to be pitied; he would almost
rather die; and he did not want to die either, when he
thought calmly of it. He was not prepared; and forcing
back the bitter tears, he turned his white, worn face to
William Mather, bending so sadly over him, and whispered:

“Tell them they may cut it off, but not till you've
written to Annie, and I have signed my name. You
know how she has begged for a word from me. Tell
them to keep away; they shall not intrude on my interview
with Annie.”

George was growing excited, but he became calm
again when he found himself alone with Mr. Mather,
who wrote the letter which gave Annie so much joy.
There was nothing in it of the expected amputation;
nothing but encouragement that he should ere long come
home to stay with her always.

“There, give me the pen,” he said, when the letter
was finished, and the trembling fingers grasped it eagerly,
but quickly let it fall as the purple, festered flesh
above the elbow throbbed and quivered with the pain the
sudden effort caused. “Once more; I'll do it if it costs
my life!” he whispered, nerving himself with might and
main, and then, with Mr. Mather guiding his hand,
he wrote his name, and the words, “God bless you,
darling Annie!” “It's done, and she must never know
the agony it cost me,” he moaned, as his bandaged arm
fell heavily at his side, while with his other hand he
wiped away the sweat which stood so thickly upon his
face. “Bring Annie's Bible,” he said, “and lay it on my
pillow. It will make me bear it better. Oh, Annie, Annie,
if you could be here to pray for me! Can't you?”

and the dim eyes turned imploringly toward Mr. Mather,
who shook his head hesitatingly.

Man of the world as he had been, he had not yet
learned to pray, but he could not resist that touching
appeal, and bending down he answered:

“I never learned to pray, but while the operation is
going on, I'll do the best I can. Shall I call them
now?”

George nodded, and William admitted the two surgeons,
who were growing somewhat impatient at the delay.
They were not naturally hard-hearted men, but
years of practice had brought them to look on amputations
in a mere business point of view. Still there was
something about this case which touched a chord of sympathy,
and they spoke kindly to the sufferer, telling him
it would soon be over, and was not half so bad as losing
a leg would be. George made no reply except to shudder
nervously as he saw the cold, polished steel so soon
to cut into his flesh.

“You'll need bandages,” he said, his mind flashing
backward to the day when he had looked in at Rockland
Hall, where Annie, with others, sat working for just such
a scene as this.

“It's here,” Mr. Mather answered, pointing to a table
where lay a ball prepared for Company R.

Without knowing why he did so, Mr. Mather took it
up and began mechanically to unroll it, pausing suddenly
as traces of a pencil met his view. There was something
written there,—something which made him start as
he read, “Annie Howard. It's your Annie, George.
Try to think I'm there. Rockland, April, 1861.”

Was it a happen so, or a special providence that this
bit of linen, over which Annie's prayers had been
breathed, should come at last to him for whom it was

intended? Mr. Mather believed the latter, and pointed
it out to George, who, comprehending the truth at a
glance, uttered a wild, glad cry of joy as he pressed it
to his lips.

“Yes, Annie, I know you are here. I can feel your
presence, and it will help to ease the pain. Begin without
delay. Don't wait, if it must be done.”

There was a moment's silence, a shutting of both
William's and George's eyes, and a shriek of anguish
rang through the room as George cried out, “Oh, Annie,
Annie, stand up closer to me,—it makes me faint, it hurts
me so bad! Pray, Mr. Mather, pray!” and Mr. Mather
did pray, the first prayer which had passed his lips since
his early boyhood,—not aloud, but silently; and the
writhing victim grew still at last, only shivering once as
the sharp saw glided through the splintered bone. Carefully
they bound up the bleeding stump with the soft linen
Annie had sent, speaking comforting words to the sufferer,
who seemed to be stupefied, for he did not notice
what they said.

It was done at last; and after a few directions the
operators hurried off to do for others, what they had
done for George. Poor George, how long and weary
were the days and nights immediately succeeding the
amputation, and how horrible the sensation which
prompted him to fancy the severed limb was there; to
feel the hot blood tingling through his finger tips, throbbing
through his wrists, streaming into his elbow joints,
and then to know 'twas all a mere delusion, for the right
arm once so full of vigor, was nought now, save a putrifying
mass buried away beneath the sod. He would not
have Annie know it yet, he said. He would rather spare
her as long as possible, and so the news was withheld
from her, while day after day George waited and watched

for the favorable change which should make it safe for
him to undertake the tedious journey. Three times was
the travelling-bag packed, with the hope of going to-morrow,
and as often did the doctor's stern mandate bid
him wait a little longer.

At last the terribly nervous sensation passed away,
taking with it all the pain, and leaving no feeling save
one of intense uneasiness and languor, which the once
strong man strove in vain to shake off, trying day after
day to sit up, if only for a moment, and as often falling
back upon his pillows from sheer exhaustion. He was
only tired; he had never been rested since the battle, he
said, and if he could once go home to Annie, and lie upon
the lounge, where he last saw her kneeling, he should
get well so fast. Often in his troubled sleep he talked of
her, begging her not to spurn her poor, crippled husband,
but to love him just the same.

“I never can work for you as I used to do,” he would
say, “never can buy that cottage on the hill, but God
won't let us starve, and I shall love you so much, so
much, when I find you do not shrink away from poor,
mutilated George.”

It was a sad, but not unprofltable lesson, which William
Mather was learning by that bedside. At home in
Rockland, where their positions were so different, he had
always respected George Graham, but he had learned to
love him now with a brother's love, and gladly would he
have saved him for the sweet wife in whom his own darling
Rose was so deeply interested, and whose letters
were silently working good in him as well as George.
Greatly his personal friends marvelled that he should
stay so closely immured within that sick-room, when he
might, had he chosen, have mingled much in the
world without, and many were the attempts they made

to drag him away. But he withstood them all, and clung
the closer to his friend, who leaned upon him with all the
trustful confidence of a little child. Hour after hour he
sat by his patient, reading to him from Annie's well-worn
Bible, and when at last the heavy cloud was lifted,
and the pathway through the valley of death was divested
of its gloom, he was the first to whom the sick man imparted
the joyful news, that whether he lived or died,
all was well,—all was peace within.

In silence and in tears Mr. Mather listened to the
story of what was so strange to him, and in the next
letter sent to Rose, he told her of the new resolves
awakened within him, tracing them back to that humble
cottage in the Hollow, where Annie Graham, unknown,
save to a few, was wielding a mighty power for good.
Everything which he could do for George he did, and
Annie herself could scarcely have been more gentle or
kind; and George,—oh how grateful he was to his noble
friend, blessing him so often for the kindly deeds.

“God will surely let you go home unharmed,” he said
one day when Mr. Mather had been more than usually
attentive. “I pray to Heaven every hour, that
you may never know the dreary heart-pang it costs one
to die away from home, and all that we hold dear, for I
am dying. I have given up the delusion that to-morrow
will find me better. I shall never be better until I wake
in Heaven,—shall never go back to Annie,—never see
my old home again. It is a humble home, Mr. Mather,
but you can't begin to guess how dear it is to me, because
it is the spot where I brought Annie after she was
mine. How well I remember that first night of housekeeping;
how proud I felt, knowing it was my home, my
table, my wife sitting opposite—that her own darling
hands had made the tea, and cut the bread she passed

me, and that I had earned it, too. The poor have many
joys to which the rich are strangers, and I've sometimes
thought we love each other more because there is little
else to divide our love. True it is that mortal man
never loved a creature better than I have loved my
Annie. She was of gentler blood than I,—was far more
delicately reared, and I know it was an unequal match.
She was far above me in social position. Highly educated
and accomplished, too; she was a belle and favorite
everywhere, while I was only George Graham,—a
mechanic and engineer. She kept nothing from me, and
she told me of a childish fancy when she was a mere
girl of fourteen, but if she ever sent a regret after the
handsome, black-eyed boy,—the object of that fancy,—it
was not perceptible to me. Still, I think that may have
had its influence, — that, and the fact that her life
was very wretched with her proud, hard aunt, on whom
she was dependent, and who wanted her to marry a
white-haired millionaire. But Annie chose me, and I
have worshipped her with an idolatry which I know was
sinful in the sight of Heaven, who will have the first
place in our hearts. I have told you all this because
your wife has been a friend to Annie, and I want her to
know that Annie is her equal, if she did marry a poor
mechanic. I am not blaming any one. I know the distinctions
there are in social life. I should feel just so,
too, perhaps, if I was rich and had been educated
as you were. Even as it is I always was proud to
think my wife was a lady-born, and I hoped one day to
raise her to the position she ought to fill. But that
dream is over now. It matters little what becomes of
the body after the soul has left it, though I should rather
lie in Rockland graveyard, where Annie can sometimes
come to see me, and I do so want to hear her voice once
more before I go,—to tell her with my own lips that if
in Heaven I find a place, she has led me there.”

“Suppose we send for her,” Mr. Mather said, the glad
thought flashing upon his mind of the joy it would be to
see his own darling once more, for if Annie came, Rose,
he knew, was sure to come also. “I'll send for both
Annie and Rose at once. They can come on together.”

Mr. Graham made no objection, and Mr. Mather set
himself to the task of writing the letter, which he hoped
was to bring not only Annie, but his own precious Rose.

“Don't say a word about my arm. I'd rather tell her
myself. She won't mind it so much when she sees how
sick and weak I am,” George suggested; and so Mr. Mather
bade Rose keep the amputation to herself as heretofore.

“You will defray Mrs. Graham's expenses,” he wrote,
“and come as soon as possible, for her husband is nearer
death than you imagine.”

The letter was finished and read aloud to George, who
faintly nodded his thanks, and then the message was sent
on its way to the North.